


though your hope is heavy

by aliatori



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Light Angst, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-09
Updated: 2019-01-09
Packaged: 2019-10-07 08:38:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,504
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17362667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aliatori/pseuds/aliatori
Summary: Aranea admits to Ignis that maybe she does need help sometimes.





	though your hope is heavy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [stopmopingstarthoping](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stopmopingstarthoping/gifts).



> Happy birthday, Hope! I had a little help with the idea for this fic. (; I hope you enjoy and thank you for being you!

Aranea’s never been one to dream of lofty, romantic ideals—even if she had been, survival and war wrung them out of her long ago—but she’s not ashamed to admit the thought of seeing Ignis again makes her drive with a lead foot all the way towards Lestallum, bike roaring through desolate cities and along abandoned stretches of highway.

As she races towards Lestallum _alone_ , though she hadn’t left alone.

Dodging daemons and navigating treacherous pathways doesn’t leave her a lot of time to dwell on it. Really, the World of Ruin doesn’t leave _anyone_ time to dwell on _anything_ , and for once she finds herself glad of the distraction. If it feels like she’s racing to be back at Ignis’s side like the heroine of a romance novel, it also feels far too much like she’s running _from_ a neat row of freshly dug graves, a row she can picture clear as the daylight that’s been gone for years. Being one of the (un)lucky few to survive the apocalypse means Aranea has lost more people than your average commander had in their ranks to begin with. She knows she’s not alone; she’s heard a thousand and one stories from a tenth that many people, all of whom bear scars from their tales whether they’re visible or not. Hell, she’s told her own across the wavering light of a campfire, clutching at a precious mug of whiskey to drink in their honor.

She doesn’t know why this loss, this girl feels different.

No, not _this_ _girl_. Not another statistic—Silia.

Maybe it’s because she was the same age as Aranea when she first held a bloodied spear in her hands. Maybe it’s because Biggs and Wedge had taken a shine to her in a way they didn’t to many in Aranea’s company, mostly because newbies had the tendency to come and go when the going got hard and they didn’t like to waste their time. Maybe it’s because Silia’s drive to fight was a mirror to Aranea’s own, down to the same focused grimace during a battle and propensity for aerial combat. Maybe it’s because, fool that she is, Aranea had made the mistake of letting her guard down and Silia in, treating her more sister than soldier, and now her death was a knife wedged in the gap of her armor causing Aranea to bleed out, too.

Maybe it’s because she’s so god damn _tired_ of being stoic, strong, and stalwart. Of burying people with a stiff upper lip and rousing the troops to battle right after. Of fighting a fight that feels more and more with each passing hour like it was rigged from the start.

Aranea swallows down the lump in her throat, revs the engine of her bike, and drives faster, imagining her thoughts burning up like the rubber against the pavement.

* * *

She arrives in Lestallum in record time.

Cell phone service is out, of course, so there’s no way for her to call ahead and see if Ignis is home or not. She has a key to his apartment and her feet know the steps through the city to get there all on their own, so she goes, leather riding gear creaking and helmet tucked under her arm.

Once Aranea stands at Ignis’s front door, she has enough courtesy to knock, a few hard raps in quick succession. What she _doesn’t_ have is the patience to wait for it to be answered. But no sooner than she fishes the key out of her pocket and slides it in the doorknob, the door is opening of its own accord.

There he is. Ignis.

Aranea lets out a breath she’s been holding for two hundred kilometres. He’s wearing a plain white tee and blue plaid pajama bottoms, his hair mused from sleep where its swept back from his face—not his usual look back in Insomnia, she guesses, but in the World of Ruin, they all take what they can get. Ignis still makes it look good though… great, really. Aranea belatedly realizes that she didn’t check the time when she arrived, that she may have just woken him from sleep, but as soon as her gaze comes to rest on his face, the concern drifts away like a sylleblossom seed on the wind.

Though his green eyes are now milky and sightless, they somehow find Aranea’s anyway, his scarred lips curving into a warm smile. “Aranea.” He turns her name into a verbal caress, one that plucks a chord of longing deep within her chest.

“Hey,” she replies, smiling back in spite of herself, in spite of everything. “You gonna invite a girl in or make me stand out here all night?” Aranea does her best to pack a flirtatious lilt in the question.

“I believe you were in the process of inviting yourself in,” Ignis counters, though he stands back to allow her room to pass, offering a courtly bow in miniature once he does.

“I’m not good at waiting.” Hell, there goes the teasing tone, drilled down to hard truth by the reappearance of the lump in her throat. If she’d been better at waiting, maybe Silia would have come back with her.

_No_ , she admonishes, digging her nails into her palms as she heads inside Ignis’s apartment, _stop it. You will_ not _break down like a green recruit like this._ Aranea hears the thud of Ignis closing the door, followed by the soft clicks of the locks. When she glances over her shoulder, he’s walking towards her, following the sound of her breathing—or so he once claimed.

“I wasn’t expecting your arrival for another two days. I take you fared better with your mission than expected?”

Ignis’s question may as well be a punch to the gut for how well it knocks the wind out of her. “Yes and no,” Aranea answers, voice too quiet and too thick. She hopes Ignis doesn’t notice.

“Aranea, are you alright? Is something the matter?” That’s her Ignis, never missing a beat. He places his hands on her shoulders and grips them in his long fingers, giving them a gentle squeeze, eyebrows drawn together in concern. “Can I help?” he asks when met with silence.

When Aranea opens her mouth to say no, to brush off Ignis’s concern, what comes out instead is an embarrassing, choked sounding cry, like the bastard child of a hiccup and a sob. It’s like the ground is crumbling beneath her feet, eroded by the same river of grief she’s been swallowing back for days.

“It’s…” Aranea begins, the words lost in an honest-to-Six sob this time, tears streaking hot and sudden down her cheeks. “Silia.”

And then, just like she said she wouldn’t, she breaks down.

Ignis pulls her close and wraps her in his arms as she cries into his shirt, ugly and messy and snotty and everything Aranea _hates_ to be. Between gasping breaths, she tells Ignis about Silia, occasionally falling silent when a fit of weeping robs her of her words. To his credit, Ignis murmurs soothing platitudes and a few ‘I sees’ of acknowledgement, running his hands up and down her back as she tries not to drown in days (months, years, a lifetime) worth of emotions shoved down deep in the name of being strong. Once Aranea relays the relevant details, she tells herself again to _stop_ , to pull it together, to get back behind the fortress of ex-Commodore once more.

She makes the mistake of tilting her puffy, aching face up towards Ignis. As though sensing her motion, Ignis takes one hand and gently traces her swollen features with his fingertips, and it’s then that she notices the tears flowing from his non-scarred eye. 

“I’m so sorry, my love,” Ignis says quietly, genuine sorrow in the words, words that shatter Aranea into pieces once more, clinging to Ignis as she succumbs to tears that will no longer be denied.

Later, much later, when she’s on the verge of dehydration and her chest aches and she’s more thoroughly relieved _and_ embarrassed than she’s been in her entire life, when the entire front of Ignis’s shirt is soaked through and she’s gone through several handkerchiefs lingering from his days as steward, Aranea finds her voice again.

“I can’t do it alone,” Aranea admits with a sniffle, pointedly not looking at Ignis as she speaks the words.

“I’m rather afraid to inform you that you’re stuck with my company for the foreseeable future,” Ignis quips. Then, after a moment, he reaches for one of her hands and brings it to his lips, pressing a gentle kiss against her knuckles. “You don’t have to. You’ll never have to. Not as long as I’m alive,” Ignis assures her, murmuring the words into her skin.

The way her heart tries to leap out of her chest, the way her blood feels like its been replaced with liquid gold, makes Aranea think that maybe lofty, romantic ideals are worth dreaming of after all.

**Author's Note:**

> As always, kudos and comments are greatly appreciated if you enjoyed. <3 Come find me over on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/AliatoriEra) to chat.


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